There's this great clip on You Tube featuring George Carlin talking to Arsenio Hall about Doo Wop.

"When I was growin' up, '52, '53, '54, when I was 15, 16 and 17, ok, the best years… the white music, the pop music of that time, was Perry Como, and, you know, Bing Crosby, and The Andrew Sisters, and Georgia Gibbs….that what was on the radio…..(but) disc jockeys like Alan Freed were out there startin' to get this thing rolling… we were lucky because the jukeboxes in our neighborhood had The Drifters, The Dominos, The Orioles, The Clovers, the early groups, The 5 Crowns, The Spaniels, The Flamingos, all the bird groups, The Swallows. They called them all the bird groups, The Cardinals were another great one. So it was much better music for making out...We'd get into the fish, the grind, or whatever we would call the dance, just an excuse to stand still and make out is all it was. That music was a strong pull because again it had that freedom to it, you know?

	The Moonglows

Clyde McPhatter was still with The Dominos. He hadn't left yet to form The Drifters. When he left that's when Jackie Wilson took over for him in The Dominos. In '53 The Spaniels had Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight. (Then) The white music business ripped off the black music which happened in '54, Sincerely, and all those tunes, and this guy, what was his name, Bill Haley and the Rockets?.. the Comets….really lame stuff….and they copped Joe Turner's tune, Shake, Rattle and Roll, which was his and he beat them to the charts by a couple of months so we were like bugged with that…you know white people covering this good music. We knew the original Sh- Boom was by the Chords…At 17 I went into the Air Force, this is when I really got into the music… that's when I started singing some of these songs, and it wasn't doo wop. That's another word that came along later when these white groups were doing it. It was still rhythm and blues what I call hallway groups. There were some pretty decent (white) groups. I don't mean to just generally dismiss them, but there was a difference between what I was growing up with and what came along later."

The label doo wop is controversial, to say the least, among the artists who performed the music. During a recent interview Little Anthony said, "We are not a doo wop group. It is a misconception." An interesting comment since he and The Imperials are the latest inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joining other 'doo wop' artists The Coasters, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Dion, The Drifters, and The Platters. Question: is "I'm On The Outside Looking In" rock and roll? No problem calling it a pop record or even doo wop, but rock and roll? It gets complicated and it's really like splitting hairs. Anthony and The Imperials and all of the groups who are known today as doo wop are all masters of vocal group harmony. You can label it anyway you want, but it is vocal group harmony.

Truth is, as Carlin points out, the music wasn't called doo wop when it was recorded and released back in the day. In the 40's and 50's black artists records were dubbed as race music and that title evolved into rhythm and blues. There were many styles of music under the R&B umbrella...solo artists, bands, and the harmony music now known as doo wop.

The actual term doo wop probably goes back to a riff in "When You Dance" by The Turbans. Then on "In The Still Of The Night" by The 5 Satins there's another vocal doo wop riff in the background, but why single that out and label an entire style of music with that name? Some credit, or damn, depending on your point of view, the late DJ Gus Gossert with coining the phrase on his New York radio shows, but others say it originated in California.

Fact is for the last 30 years the term "doo wop" has been used to describe old R&B plus 50's and early 60's vocal group harmony. Many of the early R&B artists dislike the term and we not only respect them, but love the incredible music they created. With that said for our purposes the term doo wop covers great vocal group harmony records primarily from the 50's and 60's, with an occasional tune recorded earlier or later.

R&B, Doo Wop, Rock and Roll, Race Music…different names for what really matters… the music. What follows is a list of one hundred excellent examples of this music that will never die.

The Doo Wop Essential Top 100

I Wonder Why - Dion and the Belmonts